Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 92
A song for the Sabbath Day.
Psalm 92 gives thanks to God for His salvation. The superscription provides the only reference to the Sabbath in the Book of Psalms.
1 How good it is to give thanks to the Eternal
and to praise Your name with song, O Most High;
2 To speak of Your unfailing love in the morning
and rehearse Your faithfulness as night begins to fall.
3 How good it is to praise to the sound of strings—lute and harp—
the stirring melodies of the lyre.
4 Because You, O Eternal One, thrill me with the things You have done,
I will sing with joy in light of Your deeds.
12 Those who are devoted to God will flourish like budding date-palm trees;
they will grow strong and tall like cedars in Lebanon.
13 Those planted in the house of the Eternal
will thrive in the courts of our God.
14 They will bear fruit into old age;
even in winter, they will be green and full of sap
15 To display that the Eternal is righteous.
He is my rock, and there is no shadow of evil in Him.
26 Solomon summoned his chariots and cavalrymen. He commanded 1,400 chariots and 12,000 cavalrymen, and he sent them to the appointed cities (known as chariot cities) or to guard Jerusalem’s king. 27 The king had made silver as common as stones are in Jerusalem, and he made cedars as common as sycamore trees are in the foothills. 28 Solomon brought his horses from Egypt[a] and Kue, and the king’s businessmen paid the people of Kue for the horses. 29 One chariot was bought from Egypt for 15 pounds of silver, and one horse was bought for 60 ounces of silver. Some chariots and horses were then exported to the Hittite and Aramean kings along the route from Kue back to Israel.
11 King Solomon loved countless women from other countries—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians, Hittites—as well as Pharaoh’s daughter.
Marrying women from these foreign nations helps Solomon solidify Israel politically, but it will be the religious undoing of his nation.
2 All the countries of the king’s lovers were heathen countries that the Eternal One had warned the Israelites about: “Do not mingle with them, and do not allow them to mingle with you. They will corrupt you and lead you away from Me. They will seduce your hearts to follow their own gods.”[b] But Solomon clung to these lovers. 3 He had 700 royal wives, as well as 300 mistresses. And his wives and mistresses seduced his heart away from God.
4 Solomon followed the Lord during youth and middle age, but when Solomon was an old man, these women seduced him into following other gods. His heart was led astray and no longer completely belonged to the Eternal One, his True God, as his father David’s heart did. 5 Solomon pursued Ashtoreth (the Sidonian goddess) and Milcom (the abomination of the Ammonites). 6 Solomon abandoned his lifelong integrity and committed evil in the eyes of the Eternal. He did not follow Him completely, as his father David had. 7 Instead Solomon constructed a high place on the mountain east of Jerusalem for Chemosh (Moab’s horrific idol) and for Molech (the Ammonites’ abhorrence). 8 He constructed such sites for all his wives from other countries, so that they would have a place to burn incense and offer sacrifices to their many gods.
Faith begins as hope and indeed is unseen; so many doubt that it is real. What follows is the proof that faith is a reality that can be trusted.
4 By faith Abel presented to God a sacrifice more acceptable than his brother Cain’s. By faith Abel learned he was righteous, as God Himself testified by approving his offering. And by faith he still speaks, although his voice was silenced by death.
5 By faith Enoch was carried up into heaven so that he did not see death; no one could find him because God had taken him. Before he was taken up, it was said of him that he had pleased God. 6 Without faith no one can please God because the one coming to God must believe He exists, and He rewards those who come seeking.
7 By faith Noah respected God’s warning regarding the flood—the likes of which no one had ever seen—and built an ark that saved his family. In this he condemned the world and inherited the righteousness that comes by faith.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.